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Date: Mon, 20 Jun 2011 12:44:43 +0100 (BST)
To: Robert Eisele <robert@xarg.org>
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Subject: Re: [PHP-DEV] foreach() for strings
From: derick@php.net (Derick Rethans)

On Mon, 20 Jun 2011, Robert Eisele wrote:

> foreach() has many functions, looping over arrays, objects and implementing
> the iterator interface. I think it's also quite intuitive to use foreach()
> for strings, too.

> If you want to implement a parser in PHP, you have to go the way with for +
> strlen + substr() or $x[$i] to address one character of the string.

Yes, this sounds like a good addition to me. One question though, what 
to do with an object that implements __toString() ?

> We could
> overdo the functionality of foreach()
> by implementing LVAL's, too, in order to access single bits but this is
> really uncommon, even if the way of thinking could be, that foreach() gives
> a single attribute of each value, no matter
> if it's a complex object with the iterator interface or a primitive. What do
> you think about this one? My point of view is, that foreach() is very
> useful, which was acknowledged by many ppl via the comments of my article.

I don't think we should do it for bits, as nothing in PHP really does do 
anything with that. If you want to do stuff with bits, I think the 
"bitset" package (http://pecl.php.net/package/Bitset) is the way 
forwards.

cheers,
Derick

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